How DispatchTrack’s Route Optimizer Supercharges Last Mile Efficiency

You’re looking for a route optimizer—and you don’t want one of the free, lightweight solutions that come up when you first Google the topic. After all, you’re running a decent number of trucks, and your routing needs are more complicated than plotting points on a map and dropping off parcels.

If you’re looking for a way to optimize routes to ensure tight time windows and seamless coordination with your customers’ schedules—all while optimizing for the right equipment and the right personnel for the right jobs—then you’ve come to the right place. 

In this post, we’ll go over the ways that DispatchTrack’s route optimizer helps businesses tackle their last mile routing needs, including the challenges that our software helps users overcome and the benefits of leveraging our route optimization within a context of connected logistics. 

The Top Challenges in Route Optimization

For those of you who might be wondering why a lightweight routing option—the equivalent of Google Maps for trucks—won’t work for efficient last mile logistics, here’s a quick rundown of some of the challenges that add complexity to routing. 

• Variable service times: Different types of jobs take different lengths of time, and route planners need a way to efficiently account for this fact when putting schedules together. Otherwise, there’s a risk that your delivery schedules will start to fall apart after only a few stops—and you won’t be able to effectively match your capacity and your order volumes. 
• Matching the right equipment to the right jobs: Likewise, different deliveries will require different assets, and using your existing assets in the most efficient way isn’t always intuitive. Nobody wants to discover that a particular vehicle isn’t available for an urgent job because it’s been loaded up with orders that could just as easily have gone in a standard box truck. 
• Optimizing for cost: One of the most difficult things to visualize when you’re planning routes is the differences in expected route costs for different options. The overall complexity of the entire process means that seeing the delta between different potential plans is often too much to ask. 
• Making and adjusting plans quickly: Some of the challenges that we’re discussing are things that you can tackle by hand—it’ll just take your team hours or days. But logistics moves at a much faster pace than that, and you need to find a way to keep up.
• Scaling your routing process: A routing process that works for a few trucks out of one depot might not necessarily keep working when you add another depot and a few more trucks to go with it. The complexity of a delivery route grows exponentially—rather than linearly—as you add in new factors, but having your routing team grow exponentially as your fleet expands isn’t even remotely feasible. 
• Integrating routes within larger logistics activities: Routes can’t be built in a vacuum—they need to be built to execute out in the field. If you’re not pulling all of the data you need on orders, customer requirements, etc. from the right places then it can be difficult to optimize routes in a way that actually works for your drivers and field team. Your planned versus actual reports will be a mess.

How DispatchTrack’s Route Optimizer Helps

DispatchTrack’s route optimizer is built to streamline route optimization, speed up the routing process, and save you and your business money. It does this by offering rapid, AI-powered routing and scheduling capabilities that are built around the real-life needs of logistics businesses. 

We offer:

• Rapid route optimization that can handle thousands of stops in a matter of minutes
• Configurable routing parameters based on your actual business realities
• Calendar-based routing and scheduling for businesses that utilize calendars for coordinating work
• AI-powered capabilities that ensure 98% ETA accuracy or better
• Intuitive routing and rerouting—users can make adjustments quickly and easily from a streamlined routing interface
• Drag and drop functionality to ensure ease of use
• Automated route costing during the planning stages for instant cost comparison
• Optimized routing from multiple depots or hubs
• Automated equipment and capacity matching
• Skill-based routing and scheduling
• Reload routes, store stops, and multi-day routes

Unlike other route optimization solutions, DispatchTrack’s routing engine is designed to be easy to use with a minimum of training—no need to spend hours consulting binders full of instructions in order to edit a route. At the same time, our capabilities are sufficiently robust to handle whatever routing use case you can throw at. 

What’s the result of this combination of wide-ranging routing capabilities and serious ease-of-use? Our clients are able to get more out of their fleets and scalably, reliably generate delivery routes that are cost-efficient, feasible for drivers, and delightful to customers. 

Benefits of Leveraging DispatchTrack for Route Optimization

Like we said, DispatchTrack’s best-in-class AI-powered route optimizer has been developed over many years in close collaboration with our customers in the logistics industry. That means that everything we offer is designed to power meaningful ROI. 

Here are a few of the benefits that DispatchTrack users have seen leveraging our route optimization engine:

• 50-75% faster routing—giving time back to teams who can use it on more productive tasks.
• 98% in time delivery rates—which in turn helps improve first attempt delivery rates and thereby reduce delivery costs, to say nothing of boosting CSAT scores
• 10%+ reduction in miles driven per stop—resulting in significant reductions in fuel cost and driver hours
• Huge reductions in delivery lead times—improving customer satisfaction significantly
• Improved fleet capacity utilization—meaning that you can deliver more without increasing your fleet size or leveraging additional 3PLs

DispatchTrack’s route optimizer can handle as many stops and parameters as you can throw at it. And, because it’s easy to use, it can be rolled out to additional branches quickly and easily, so you feel the effects of improved route optimization across your entire network. 

Overall, the impact is a reduction in delivery costs and significant improvements in both efficiency and performance for our users. Interested in reading their stories? Check out our customers section. 

Last Mile Routing in Context

It’s worth noting again for anyone looking for an effective route optimizer that route optimization doesn’t happen in a vacuum. The most efficient routes in the world are only as effective as your ability to execute them in the field, track them over the course of the delivery, and match them to customers’ needs and expectations. 

That’s why the best route optimization tools are the ones that are embedded in larger logistics platforms. That way, the most accurate route information can seamlessly inform your customer communications and your delivery tracking. 

That’s exactly what DispatchTrack’s platform provides. We offer best-of-breed routing capabilities completely embedded within a last mile logistics platform that covers the whole journey from end to end—from the warehouse loader to the delivery site and everything in between. 

Our platform does more than optimize routes. It orchestrates customer communications and customer delivery experience more broadly, dispatches drivers, tracks deliveries, captures proof of delivery, and offers robust reporting. Our software slots seamlessly into your existing tech stack so you can ensure total data visibility and connectivity across your logistics processes. 

If this sounds like something that could make a difference for your business, don’t hesitate to reach out to our team today. We’d love to walk you through it.